Long Lost Family - Teddy Lupin Fic

Chapter 11

“Teddy! Teddy come on wake up! We’ve got something to show you.” Will says, prying my eyes open. I slap his hands always.

“But I was sleeping.” I moan, pushing him off me and pulling the duvet over my face.

“Too bad. Come on, let’s go.” He grabs my hand and pulls me up. He drags me into the common room where Bonnie and Myer are. Myer is yawning and whining about how she never gets any sleep these days. We follow Will and Bonnie outside and into the forbidden forest. I try to keep my sleepy eyes alert, expecting something to jump out and grab me at any moment.

“You do realise it’s called the forbidden forest for a reason.” Myer says, wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her. Will and Bonnie ignore her. We go fairly deep into the forest until there’s a small clearing.

“Okay, just stand there and don’t move.” Bonnie says, placing Myer and I at the edge of the clearing, she goes back to her twin in the centre. I look at Myer nervously, who looks even more uneasy than me. When I turn to look back at Will and Bonnie, they’re not there. In their place are two black dogs. The only difference is that one of the has a white eye patch on their left eye and the other has it on its right eye. It’s quite an impressive transformation, despite the fact that the dog with the left eye patch – who I think is Will – has a hand instead of its front right paw and the other one – Bonnie I presume – has human ears.

“It appears they have only semi-mastered the art of becoming an Animagus.” Myer says, laughing. Will the dog barks angrily at her. She steps forward and ruffles his fur, he growls and Myer laughs harder. She takes a few steps back and then in a blink of an eye Will and Bonnie are back.

“Cool eh?” Will says, smoothing down his hair.

“Yeah, I think you still may need some refining though.”  Myer says as Will attempts to shake out his furry ears.

“Well, let’s see what you’ve got.” He says, rubbing the last of the fur of his arms.

“Uh...how about we leave it as a surprise?” She says.

“Will you be ready to surprise us tomorrow?” Bonnie asks.

“What’s tomorrow?” Myer asks.

“Full moon.” Will says, a wicked gleam in his eyes and a massive smile on his face.

“Don’t seem so excited. It’s dangerous, very dangerous.” I remind him.

“Danger is my middle name.”

“No, your middle names are Johnastephen Zeus Cesar Gilberto Wilhelm Quinten Kingsley and Xavier” Myer says. Will looks at her shocked.

“You remembered all my names?” He asks, his eyebrows in his hair. “Bubble over here doesn’t even remember all my names.”

“There are like ten! And they are ridiculous!” She moans in her defence. Will ignores her and gives Myer the most genuine smile I have ever seen on his face.

“You remembered all my names.” He whispers in disbelief. He bites his lip and runs a hand through his hair. “No-one ever remembers all my names.” He laughs quietly. “I only told you them once!” He says, still laughing. Myer’s face is red. “How did you do it?” Myer bites her lip and shrugs.

“I don’t know...I just...remembered.” Will laughs. He steps forward and pulls her into a bone-crushing hug, lifting her a foot of the ground.

“Well, thank you,” He says, kissing both her cheeks. “For just remembering.” He sets her down and we head back to the castle, Myer still blushing furiously. Just as I’m about to go back to bed Bonnie pulls me aside.

“Listen, Wednesday. Everything is going to be fine. Near to midnight Will and I will take you out to the forbidden forest we’ll change and then spend the night making sure you stay out of trouble.”

“Thanks. But what am I supposed to do about Neville and McGonagall, they were going to come up with a plan too.” Bonnie taps her lips with her finger.

“I’ll deal with it. Go to bed.”

 The rest of the night my dreams are occupied with dogs; black dogs with white eye patches. Sometimes they’re happy; barking, weaving in between trees bathed in sunlight. Other times the sky is dark and rain pelts down as I stare at the dogs bodies beneath me, blood matting their fur.

I wake up after only a few hours, drenched in sweat. I blink a few times trying to bring myself back to reality. I sit up and hug my knees, breathing deeply. This is how I usually spend my nights leading up to a full moon; worrying that I’m going to hurt someone, or worse. I decide I have to tell Bonnie and Will to back out, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt them. I find myself wondering if this is what it was like for my Dad, or if it was worse.

Realising that I’m probably not going to get much more sleep tonight I get out of bed and leave the Gryffindor tower. Hogwarts is so quiet at night. There’s no-one around, only ghosts. I remember Neville telling me why there were so many ghosts at Hogwarts; this was the battlefield of the Second Wizarding War, the war my parents died in. I sometimes wonder if I might bump into them, they died here so maybe they stayed as ghosts, but I know that the chances of that are very small.

I walk up and down the hallways talking to the ghosts I have come accustomed to seeing, I talk to Lavender Brown for a while. She’s very friendly and likes to talk about what Harry got up to during his time at Hogwarts. She tends to avoid talking about Ron and Hermione though, apparently she’s still a little sour over the fact the Ron chose Hermione over her.

Eventually I head back to my dorm, careful to stay out the way of Fred and Peeves who are throwing eggs at each other. Dawn is just starting to break as I crawl back under the covers.